You probably know the story, which is horrible:
A recently fired store worker shot a former colleague to death and then randomly started shooting others near the Empire State Building before he was shot by police officers, law enforcement officials said.The first reaction of a couple of Gateway Pundit's commenters is snark:
Eight other people were struck by bullets when the shooting started at about 9 a.m. on the Fifth Avenue side of the building but those injuries are not believed to be life threatening, police said....
He’s in trouble now..NY is a gun free zone..right Bloomberg?Meanwhile, the Freepers are linking this:
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This has to be a mistake. Guns are not allowed in NYC. Obviously the criminal element doesn't know this or else they would leave their guns at home.
Empire State Building Shooting Is Proof that Gun Control Doesn't WorkYeah, because that huge Berlin Wall around the five boroughs should have kept illegal guns out, but somehow it didn't. Silly liberals!
The shootings around the Empire State Building today are further proof that gun control simply doesn't work -- except to keep guns out of the hands of those who might want to legally defend themselves.
New York City is a de facto "Gun Free Zone." Thus, by liberal logic, there should be zero gun crime. How, then, is it possible that firearms account for about 60% of all murders in New York? By liberal logic, murderers in New York aren't able to own guns. See how absurd the logic of the gun grabbers is? ...
Five bucks says this weapon came from a No-Tell Motel of a gun shop somewhere in Virginia, where the gun laws are Southern but the travel time to the big cities of the Northeast, and the unsavory folks therein, is conveniently brief.
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Gun fetishists are smug after every shooting, regardless of where it takes place, because the gun lobby continually primes them to be dissatisfied with the status quo. There's always another gun law standing between the rubes and real freedom, so wherever there's a mass shooting, those horrible laws are at fault. In New York City, it's all that gun-banning. If there's a mass shooting at a school in Mississippi or Arkansas or Kentucky, then laws against packing concealed heat in schools is at fault.
(I'm not sure how these folks explain away the Fort Hood shooting. I'm pretty sure the soldiers at Fort Hood are allowed to carry weapons.)
If a future Republican president gives us a Supreme Court that overturns all state or local gun law stricter than those in, say, Rick Perry's Texas, the gunners will still blame gun crime on the few laws that remain. Maybe we'll have a rhetorical arms race, until we're seriously debating legalized private ownership of tactical nuclear weapons (because the Framers really wanted it that way, and the ban is the reason for all that crime). Or maybe we'll shift gears and the gunners will start arguing that you simply don't have the legal right to prevent them from carrying concealed weapons on your private property (in the same way that many right-wingers argue that criticizing a right-winger's speech is a violation of that right-winger's First Amendment rights). Whatever happens, we can loosen the gun laws all we want, and it'll never be enough for the gun crowd.
5 comments:
Sh*t, Steve, I hate to say this, but if this happened in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, or Staten Island, or even Jersey or Union City, far from the media people who only feel something when it might affect them or their family/friends, this would be no big deal at all.
Probably no CNN, no MSNBC, no FOX.
And probably only a brief break-in on your 'regularly scheduled programming," on CBS, NBC, ABC, and whatever local channels 9 and 11 in NYC call themselves this year - if that.
The average city gang violence, or suburban/rural dispute between neighbors, and accidental shootings of family members/friends, including young children, no longer even get any notice on national TV, and now only appear in the local papers next to the Labor Day sales ads on page A9, or B6 – unless your town is tiny, that is.
And on the local TV news, to be covered after the national news, and before the loud sports guy/gal, and the outgoing weather person who can look concerned on cue.
I'm an originalst.
Having guns is a 2nd Amendment Right?
Ok.
Then the only weapons allowed are the guns the Founding Fathers might have had access to.
Your home blunderbuss, loaded and cocked above the mantle, should be able to take-out a couple of thieves carrying flintlock pistols.
But, THAT'll never happen.
Soon, the NRA will be marketing Kevlar clothing - your defense against everyone elses 2nd Amendment Rights.
With hidden pockets and pouches for packing pistols and extra clips.
Actually, these are already out there.
I just don't know if the NRA leadership has caught on to the marketing potential of this yet.
Actually, the facts that are now emerging indicate that the only person the killer shot was his former boss - all the other bystanders were shot by cops attempting to shoot the killer.
Too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that soldiers are not allowed to wander around on base w/ their weapons, & I'm quite sure I read that after the Ft. Hood shootings.
Couple things: As Phil wrote, it does indeed appear that gun control was to blame for the high casualty count in the shooting. According to the NYT, the police officers fired 16 times. The assailant fired 6 times, striking his intended victim 5 times (before the police started shooting) and once at the police. Perhaps the people NYC needs to disarm are the guys currently allowed to carry them; they seem to be unable to control themselves.
And M. Bouffant is correct, soldiers do not as a matter of course carry weapons, and especially not in a cafeteria. The only ones that regularly carries a weapon are the MP's, and in some positions the Officer/NCO of the day. In the case of the latter, it's usually a workplace that has classified material or arms (like the armory!)
The US of A is the only nation in the world where you can drive down to a strip mall and come home twenty minutes later with a pack of cigarettes, three six packs of beer, two bags of beef jerky, an AK47 and 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
I mean, is this a great country or what?
Proudly cranky,
The New York Crank
P.S. instead of banning guns in schools, why don't we just ban schools?
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